REGULATORY DEVELOPMENTS

August 2007

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Washington State Pollution Control Hearings Board Rejects Vegetation Removal as Mitigation for Groundwater Rights
CPM Development Corp. dba ICON Materials v. Ecology

After a lengthy battle over the Department of Ecology’s denial of two groundwater permit applications for a gravel mining operation near Seattle, Washington, the Pollution Control Hearings Board (PCHB) issued a declaratory ruling that vegetation removal does not qualify as a “resource management technique” offsetting the impact of the water withdrawals. The PCHB’s ruling foreclosed the mine operator’s reliance on a 1997 statute requiring consideration of water impoundments, aquifer recharge, and similar resource management techniques as mitigation for water rights.